Sunday, July 3, 2011

If it's "misogyny" to ask Michele Bachmann if she's a "flake," what was it when people routinely accused Jerry Brown of being one?

You do remember Jerry Brown, don't you? He's been dogged with being a "flake" for as long as he's been on the political scene. See, e.g., here.

Funny, no one ever thought that calling Jerry Brown a "flake" was a slur against all men. Probably because it wasn't.

But when FOX News host Chris Wallace asked Michele Bachmann if she's a flake, all gender-hell broke loose, and the usual banshees had their usual conniption. Don't believe me? Go to Google News and type in Michele Bachmann and flake and sexism and catch up on some of the inane punditry that passes for political analysis in this culture. (Note that when a female politician tells a male politician to "man up," that's a "you go girlfriend!" moment. I want to hear someone use that phrase to Palin or Bachmann, just to see the reaction.)

And all I can say is, here we go again. Is that what it's going to be again in this campaign -- no man is permitted to attack a female candidate without being accused of hating women? Just as some insist on conflating all attacks on our mixed race president with racism?

If that's going to be the standard for this election -- where any criticism of a female candidate by any male is automatically construed as "sexism" and "misogyny" -- then this nation isn't ready for a woman president, and every person of good will needs to vote against any woman who runs on that basis alone.

We cannot have a president who is immune from criticism just because she has a vagina.